The Stardock
Interview Part 2 on Shacknews continues their conversation with Stardock
boss Brad Wardell. Topics include the dumbing down of strategy games, how
publishers lie about sales numbers, competing with digital retailers,
and Microsoft's lack of leadership on the PC as a gaming platform. On the
heels of an article on
Joystiq about opening Games for Windows to indie developers, Brad offers a
revelatory quote about the nightmare of working with the Games for Windows LIVE
platform:

I don't know. I started out as a big Games for Windows Live
advocate. I intended for Elemental to be on Games for Windows Live, but then as
we got closer, the Xbox group took it over more and more. And they have things
where, oh, if you want to use Games for Windows Live to update your game, you
have to go through [their] certification. And if you do it more than X number of
times, you have to pay money. It's like, "My friends, you can't do that on the
PC."

On the console, I don't have to update my game because an anti-virus program got
an update and is now identifying my VB scripts as viruses and I have to apply an
emergency patch. That would just add insult to injury. We've had to upgrade our
games plenty of times over the years, not because we found some bug, but because
some third-party program, or driver, or whatever screwed it up. If Games for
Windows Live maintains that strategy and they take over, I'm done. I'm not
making PC games. I would be done.

MS would be fucking stupid to push gamers away from Windows. If it weren't for games, I might as well save my cash and run Linux. Games are really one of the few areas that Windows dominates. Most other things can be done just as well and a lot cheaper on Linux. Or Mac if you insist on spending the money and happen to swing that way.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)